What has been going on in the Arab world since the beginning of this year has shown us once again that ousting dictators doesn't automatically mean the end of authoritarian political systems. One of the main reasons for this paradox is the methods used by opponents while overthrowing their leader.
It's relatively easy for people to agree on what or who they don't want. If a leader who people no longer want is an autocrat, the opposition alliance becomes stronger. If the targeted leader uses violence against his own people, then the opposition also gains some legitimacy to use violence against him. However, when it comes to fighting people who have up until recently supported the leader, the opposition sometimes has difficulties agreeing on what approach to take against them. Because fighting the leader's supporters may easily turn into a fratricidal war, and the effort of ousting a dictator may develop into a meaningless fight for domestic power and a bloody and open-ended civil war.
The main problem is that while the masses may agree on what they don't want, they don't always agree on what exactly they do want. Revolutions aimed at getting rid of a particular person sometimes only mean that the person is replaced by someone exactly like him, but perhaps from a different family or ethnic and social background. That's what the Egyptian people have felt and that's why they are pouring into Tahrir Square once again to stop this from happening.
When opponents fail to agree on what to do next after the fall of a dictator, given all political vacuums are somehow filled, some domestic power circles and foreign powers benefit from this situation to shape new political balances according to their own interests. One can find examples of this phenomenon throughout history, such as the Russian Revolution of 1917, for example, or from current conflicts such as divided Palestine or occupied Iraq.
To prevent this power vacuum, those who have united their forces to remove a sanguinary dictator and build a new regime have to have common purposes based on principles. These principles will appeal to everybody in this country only if they are inspired by universal values rather than local ones. This is what happened in Eastern European countries after the end of the Cold War; their accession bids to the EU became a common purpose for all major political actors, and that's how these opponents managed not to start quarreling with one another in pointless political games.
The opposition in the Arab world should agree on common principles and quickly choose their international cooperation partners. If they don't, they soon risk finding out that their sacrifices were in vain. If they need a concrete example, they can look at Turkey, which still suffers from the remnants of a military tutelage regime and which has been so far unable to throw out the 1982 Constitution. One of the ways to agree on common values and principles is to face one's history. This is also the best way to prevent serious mistakes that will have to be faced in the future.
